Mikel Arteta has confirmed the bad news on Cristhian Mosquera’s injury, whilst also offering a concerning update on Leandro Trossard.
There was a mix of good and bad injury news ahead of Arsenal’s trip away to Aston Villa on Saturday.
The good was that Leandro Trossard was back in the squad after missing the Gunners’ previous two games with an injury. The bad was the report that Cristhian Mosquera could miss six-to-eight weeks with an ankle problem.
Unfortunately, following the Villa defeat, Mikel Arteta soured even the good news by indicating that goalscorer Trossard’s substitution in the 86th minute was related to his previous injury against Bayern Munich.
“He was really good,” Arteta said of Trossard’s performance. “We know he is another player coming back from injury and he started to feel it again, so we had to take him off.”
In other post-match comments, Arteta made it sound more like a pre-planned change, saying: “The situation with Leo is the same. He could only play a certain amount of minutes.”
But if the winger is still feeling the injury, he’s certainly not ready to start matches again at this stage.
Arteta also confirmed the reports on Mosquera, admitting the injury is worse than they’d initially feared.
“He’s going to be out for weeks,” Arteta admitted. “Unfortunately, it’s much more than what we expected, the way he was feeling. So, he’s going to be out for weeks.”
William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes also remained absent at the weekend, with the expectation that Saliba will be back imminently (though it’s not clear exactly when) and that Gabriel could return by the end of the month.
The only other injured Arsenal player at this stage is Kai Havertz, who is also seemingly still a while off a comeback.